Cebu City sees steep rise of vaccine registrants

A Cebu City health worker gets a shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. | Delta Letigio

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City is seeing a rise of registrants among health workers for the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine program.

City Health Department (CHD) officer-in-charge, Doctor Jeffrey Ibones, told CDN Digital that as of March 26, 2021, there are now almost 5,000 registrants for the vaccine program among health workers.

In the past two days of the vaccine roll-out among barangay health workers, at least 1,500 doses were administered and the city had to request for additional 1,800 doses from the Department of Health (DOH) to continue the roll-out.

Ibones said this rise in registrants shows that there is a growing trust among health workers in the COVID-19 vaccine as more people testify that the vaccines have no side effects and that the process is fairly simple.

Since more doses are coming in, the CHD has decided to continue the roll-out until next week to finish all doses provided to the city by the DOH.

The roll-out will continue on Monday, March 29, 2021, and they hope to finish inoculating all doses before the Holy Week break, and with the number of health workers coming into the sites, Ibones is confident they will be able to complete the roll-out before the holidays.

“If mahutdan ta, mohangyo napud ta sa DOH. Magpabaga gyod tag nawng kay sila raman atong makwaan as of now and atong target is mabakunahan tanan,” said Ibones.

With the rise of registrants, Ibones hopes more health workers, senior citizens, and indigents will register by now so that when more doses of the vaccine arrive, they can easily be called to the sites for inoculation.

The CHD is using the priority list with health workers as the primary receiver of the vaccines. If all health workers have been vaccinated, the city will move on to the next priority, which is the senior citizens.

The CHD noted that the increase in the registrants was also caused by the success in the information dissemination of the risks and benefits of getting vaccinated.

The city government has chosen to cater to all health workers in the city regardless of residency including from private clinics, birthing homes, dental clinics, and others are given an equal “shot” at getting the vaccines.

Ibones said that catering to all health workers has encouraged many non-residents working here to be vaccinated, which will also benefit their own local government unit (LGU) of residency.

The doctor encouraged health workers with doubts about the vaccines to just be registered because they may change their minds in the future and registration would assure them of an allocation.

With the increasingly positive response from the health sector, the CHD hopes this will encourage the public to be vaccinated as well when the mass roll-out would begin in the next few months. /rcg